1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the game of spoons and more specifically it relates to an interactive game system for providing a spoons related game that promotes education of the United States.
2. Description of the Related Art
Spoons, the game, has been in use for years (sometimes referred to as “pig” or “donkey”) and three to eight players may play. The objective of spoons is to get rid of a player's cards before anyone else does. There are different ways to play spoons, but an exemplary set of rules for spoons is located at http://www.pagat.com/eights/spoons.html which is hereby incorporated by reference.
Conventional spoons utilizes a standard 52-card deck (without jokers) and [N-1] spoons where N is the original number of players. The spoons are positioned in the center of the table.
The cards are then dealt to each of the players (e.g. 5 cards per player) with the remaining cards in the deck being placed in the center of the table. The top card of the deck is turned over to begin the discard pile. The first player then must either (1) discard a card from their hand onto the discard pile or (2) draw a card from the deck.
The player may discard a card from their hand only if it matches the current discarded card in either suit or rank (e.g. if the top card is a queen of diamonds, then they may discard either a diamond or a queen). Upon discarding the card, the player must say the name of the card or get “razzed” (a penalty applies if they don't where they have to draw another card).
If the player draws a card and the newly drawn card matches the current discarded card in either suit or rank, they may immediately discard the newly drawn card. If not, then the player must add the newly drawn card to their hand. Play then progresses to the next player. If all of the cards in the deck are drawn, then the discarded cards are shuffled and reused.
When a player is holding only one card, the player typically must say “one card” along with the name of that card or get a penalty. When a player discards their last card, they must announce the name of the card or receive a penalty. When the player discards their last card, they will grab one spoon and then the remaining players attempt to grab a spoon. Because there are N-1 spoons available, one player will be left without a spoon and will no longer be part of the game.
The next round is played with N-2 spoons. Play continues until only one player is left as the winner.